


things that live in the dark

by juniordreamer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dark Side Rey, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Oneshot, References to Depression, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 06:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniordreamer/pseuds/juniordreamer
Summary: When she leaves Jakku, she thinks maybe the feeling will stay behind, buried deep beneath the crust of the earth.But then Han Solo dies.  Is murdered right before her eyes by a man she should hate (but she doesn’t), a man she should fear (but she doesn’t).It cracks open in her soul then.  Stronger, less controlled.  A volatile thing she can call to the forefront of her mind when she needs it.And it’s interesting, this tool she now has.  This power she can wield to strike him down (and she does), to make him pay (and she does).





	things that live in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> CW: the space babes don't actually call it by its name, but this fic deals a bit with feelings of depression and anxiety. Take care of yourselves <3

There’s a feeling that lives inside her. It ebbs and flows. Lays dormant for long stretches of time, hibernating beneath her skin where it’s dark and warm and safe from outside forces.

When it stirs, it’s in flashes. Moments in the sand when the modulator she’s worked hours to pull from the husk of a star destroyer turns out to be fractured beyond repair.

When the quarter portion her work provides does nothing to slake the constant hunger in her belly.

At night, when the wind rages, the sand against the dome of her AT-AT sounding like rain.

She stamps it out when it comes to life, smothers it until it withers and dies and she remembers all of the other things she’s supposed to be.

Strong, patient. A survivor.

When she leaves Jakku, she thinks maybe the feeling will stay behind, buried deep beneath the crust of the earth. 

But then Han Solo dies. Is murdered right before her eyes by a man she should hate (but she doesn’t), a man she should fear (but she doesn’t).

It cracks open in her soul then. Stronger, less controlled. A volatile thing she can call to the forefront of her mind when she needs it.

And it’s interesting, this tool she now has. This power she can wield to strike him down (and she does), to make him pay (and she does).

\--

She thinks maybe, after Crait, things will be better. She’ll bask in the warmth of her friends and forget what it is to be alone, to be rejected, to be wrong and wrong and wrong. She’ll devote herself to the cause, lead the way Leia leads. With passion and hope and conviction. Inspire the way Finn inspires—with strong words put into stronger actions. 

But at night, when it’s quiet, she feels it crawling just beneath the surface, a wound she can’t stem, a disease she can’t cure and she thinks if only she could name it—this dark, inky thing inside her—she could find a way to scrub it out. To make herself whole and clean.

“It’s anger,” a voice presses through the bond, an answer to the question she never dared ask out loud. “That’s what you’re feeling. That’s what it is. Anger.”

She closes her mind against the intrusion, fortifies her walls until they’re as tall as the buildings on Coruscant, the ones that brush hands with the sky, and then builds them taller still.

It’s quieter with them closed, but the word echoes in the silence that’s left behind.

_Anger_. 

Is that what this is? Is that what she’s felt in spurts and spikes for as long as she can remember?

_Anger_.

Is that what she feels now? When the missions fail and the speeders fall from the sky and no matter what they do it isn’t enough and they’re looking at her like she should know, like she should be the one to save them and it’s _too much. _

She’s only a scavenger, alone and unwanted and _hungry _even now with so much more than portions to fill her belly with. 

_Anger. _

The word sits in her mouth, foreign and cold. Bitter on her tongue.

“The Jedi would tell you not to feel it.”

His voice again, this time whispered against the shell of her ear.

She jumps, turns, eyes narrowed and saber spitting wildly in her hands.

She looks at him, the Supreme Leader in his blackened armor and his darkened quarters on a ship that could blast them to dust if only he knew their coordinates. This man who takes and slaughters and kills and _reached out _only to take it back and _yes_, she’s angry. With him and this and all of it. Angry enough to bring the heat of her saber to his neck. To make him hurt the way she hurts because why should she be the only one to feel this way? Isn’t it enough that she’s here? Standing and fighting and crawling on her hands and knees up a mountain that never ends when all she wants to do is slide back through the earth, to the dark, where it’s warm and safe from all the things she doesn’t have above the ground.

It bleeds from her, this anger. In a way she can’t stop, a way she knows must leak through the bond because he’s looking at her like he knows, like he’s _sorry_, but no matter how she tries she can’t stem the flow.

“I am no Jedi,” she tells him, tired in a way that settles so deep in her bones she’s sure they’ll soon grind to dust beneath her weight.

And he stares at her, jaw working in the way that he does, lungs expanding and constricting with the air he draws through his nose and he’s so _steady_. Even when he’s reeling, even when the ground crumbles beneath his feet. 

“Then what are you?”

She smiles at this. A cruel thing, sharpened to a blade.

“I’m nothing, remember? Nobody.”

It cuts him and she’s glad.

“Is this not what you wanted?” she continues, relishing the way he drops his eyes, curls his fingers into fists. “Me, to be more like you?”

The bond simmers, violent and unstable, and she thinks for a moment that he'll disappear before she gets her answer. But then he looks at her, shakes his head like it isn’t true, like it was never true, and suddenly fear comes to stand beside all the other things that live with her in the dark.

“I wanted you as you are.”

“As I was,” she corrects, even if she isn’t sure now which version of herself belongs to which time.

She turns away, the saber forgotten in her hand, but he’s there half a second later, breathing her air. Taking up her space.

“This thing you feel, coiled up inside you, I know what it is because it lives in me too. You try to bury it, to hide it in the darkest corners of yourself, but it _likes_ the dark. It _thrives_ there. You try to use it, let it dull the weaker parts of yourself, but it isn’t something you can control. And it doesn’t just weaken, it _crushes_. Everything.” He pauses and when his fingers brush her cheek, they come away wet. “Don’t let it crush you.”

And that’s what it’s doing, isn’t it? Crushing her. Grinding her down to dust and dirt and nothing at all. Nothing but this black, sticky tar that steals the breath from her lungs until it’s all she can do but draw one ragged breath after another, the sound rattling in her chest.

He’s so warm beside her, his shoulder solid against her own and she lets herself fall into it. Just a little. Just enough to ease the ache in her bones.

“I’m so tired,” she whispers, another truth bled through the bond. 

But he doesn’t judge her for it the way she thinks he might. He only stands tall and still and steady where he is.

“I know.”

Another ragged breath.

“I don’t want to feel this way.”

He nods. And then—

“I think I know something that might help.”

\--

Rey's boots sink into sand. A desert sun shines on her back and warmth bleeds in her bones and she feels the force that lives within each of those things as surely as she feels the weight of the saber in her hand. 

A TIE cuts through the horizon, the whine of the engine just barely reaching her ears. 

She watches it approach with eyes narrowed against the sun.

She breathes.

She feels.

She steadies herself.

She turns to run and the anger, it sinks.

And then, she flies.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](https://juniordreamer.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/juniordreamer2).


End file.
